Nominated for a Streamy Award

OKAY! What a week, you guys. Nominated for Best Indie Series in the Streamy Awards. Once I saw that we were nominated, I checked out the competition. Really great shows; different voices, very different flavors, it’s awesome to see that we’re up against really amazing content. The quality of the other shows actually feels like validation for what we’re doing as well. I never received an official nominee notification email, but I read our name on the Streamy’s site as I scrolled through and felt a wave of relief sweep over me. It’s always nerve wracking to make a big deal out of something on the channel, ask the people watching to go out and support you, and then not have it pan out. I feel like Ive let down the audience. So getting in as an Indie series nomination makes their participation and belief worthwhile. And the Streamys are always talking about the passion involved in web video. Hard to be a more fitting example for the passion of storytelling than the Indie category. No money, just stories.

The next day I got an email from the Streamys that was all, “Please RSVP by tomorrow. Will you attend?” I then checked my SPAM folder and there it was, the nominee notification and RSVP request. Eliza and I hadn’t even talked about it, but we asked Craig and our manager at CDS and they both said I should go. Unfortunately, we can’t afford to get Eliza out there too, but two weeks from today I land in L.A. again. I’m really excited. Not simply about the Streamy’s either. I’m going to try to line up a collab video for while I’m out there, I’m crashing on the floor of a friend of mine who moved out to L.A. after we killed him in the show, and I want to get to the New Beverly. The September schedule isn’t up on their site yet, but I don’t even care what ends up on the bill, I just want to marinate in the atmosphere of cinematic adoration in the New Bev. We booked my flight last night with the help of Eliza’s brother, himself an avid travel enthusiast. Excited. Me.

So, as the end of the initial voting for Project Greenlight approached—tomorrow is the last day—I found myself getting increasingly nervous that nobody had the chance to see our entry. Their voting system is set up to be very cheat-proof, with peer judges being assigned random videos to rate and no way to look up an entry. The only verification of submission was an email saying Submission Success or if you tried to submit again you’d get a pop up saying, “You’ve already submitted.” So I was fairly confident that our entry went through, but their was no way to actually see it’s official entry page. And as the deadline drew closer, I could see more and more people feeling the way I did. Comments sections on Project Greenlight Facebook posts started to get filled with: “Did anybody see ONE SECOND CHANGES EVERYTHING? I’d love some thoughts.” or “I hope ROOM 302 makes it into the top 200. Anyone judge that one?” Shows you two things: 1, Everybody wanted some kind of confirmation that ANYONE on the judging side of things saw their project. 2, as creators, we just desperately want to know what someone thinks of what we made. I was feeling the validation itch as well, but I didn’t want to do one of the “Anybody see…” things. So when they posted asking for our opinion on the funniest entry people had seen, I recommended an entry I saw called NO ONE’s READY FOR THAT by searching for Project Greenlight entries on YouTube after I’d maxed out my 50 official judging entries. I also went fishing for anybody who’d seen mine by saying. “Absolutely the funniest one I saw. I’m not even connected to it, my short was called Whoops. Theirs was just really meta and hilarious.” Totes paid off. Somebody commented “I loved whoops!” Someone saw it and they liked it. My sincere-compliment, backdoor-desperate-plea-for-validation worked! Since the first round of judging ends tomorrow I’ll be making Whoops public very soon. My extensive searching for Project Greenlight entries has also displayed to me the sheer number of people entering. It feels like it’s not just quality that will end up in the top 200, but a little bit of luck too. I still hope for the best. I’d love to direct a Miramax feature.

Lastly, our follow-up screening at Gen Con was great. I get so wrapped up in all of this stuff that when I actually sit down and watch a full episode it’s nice to remember that I really like the story we’re telling. I think we’ve got something unique happening within all of this super powered wrapping.

Time to start thinking about the next Indiegogo campaign video and the live show we owe the folks who voted for us during the Streamy’s nomination process. Oh, and finishing the script for episode 9.